What If ...... ?

Some of those 'speeches' Dubya gave at military camps, when back from Iraq, were so doctored you could see it. At a certain point, something startled him. The sound of thousands of yelling and screaming people came from behind him, and Dubya turned around in surprise.

We never saw what he saw, but I bet you he looked right into the eyes of a sound system.

Probably things are not so bad as you painted them in your introduction, John. I rather think they are not.

But the situation is bad -- and the dolts now in power are trading away freedom for what they perceive to be security.

It doesn't work that way -- but they are not able to see that.

I think change is coming next election.

I only hope whoever takes the reins actually gives them a good yank.

Frank:

That will depend on how willing people are to get moving.

It is still up to the will of the people. If they want a change we will get one at the ballot box. That still remains the law of the land. IMO The seeds of the direction of our society will take in the future will be planted in our next election.

In the meantime, the goodwill created over generations vanishes and, through no fault of the people, America continues being turned into the most internationally hated nation on earth.

Not having been an American living overseas lately, I have no way of judging the extent to which "but we don't blame you for your government" has turned into "when are you bastards gonna start taking responsibility for your government?"

John Webb
Sure it's the fault of the American people. They through whatever reason elected our national leadership. I know I will get the cliché Bush was installed by the USCC however, can the same be said for congress? If the American public did not agree with the present administration why did the elect a republican congress to aid and abet it. Sounds like it not me it's the other guy. Nuts it's you!!

Tartarin
My son lives in the Czech republic and from what I can get out of him there is very little if any resentment of the US. I wonder how much of the resentment is actual and how much is media driven in the rest of Europe.

au1929, if many people vote in a particular direction because they have been misled by pre-election lies, false promises and unmentioned hidden agendas, are they at fault?

As far as the Czech Republic is concerned, perhaps their opinion might change if they had much oil and discovered they were building W.M.D.s (according to Bush)?

When has anyone liked governments? That being said makes me sound as if I'm giving tacit approval. I'm not. The direction government is taking to limit freedoms and increase citizen scrutiny fills me with apprehension for our inaliebale rights. I can only hope that through study of issues and participation in forums such as this that people have a clear sighted view of the sudden erosion now occurring.

John Webb How many people walk into the voting booth and vote by straight party line without having the slightest inkling of what the candidate stands for or his past record. In addition how many do not bother to vote at all. Sure it's the American peoples fault and their responsibility. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.

A very necessary watchdog group has been set up by a Stanford professor who has studied electronic voting processes. It's purpose is to educate people about the flaws in shiny new-tech voting machines and urge them to demand oversight and a "paper trail." http://www.verifiedvoting.org/theproblem.asp

And that's only one way we have to take responsibility for our freedom.

Hacking democracy? [from Salon]

Computerized vote-counting machines are sweeping the country. But they can be hacked -- and right now there's no way to be sure they haven't been.

...Harris has discovered, for example, that Diebold, the company that supplied touch-screen voting machines to Georgia during the 2002 election, made its system's sensitive software files available on a public Internet site. She has reported on the certification process for machines coming onto the market -- revealing that the software code running the equipment is seldom thoroughly reviewed and can often be changed with mysteriously installed "patches" just prior to an election. And in perhaps her most eyebrow-raising coup, she found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used to run the company that built most of the machines that count votes in his state -- and that he still owns a stake in the firm.

...She began by looking into Election Systems & Software, the world's largest election supply company, based in Omaha, Neb. Harris quickly found that ES&S was owned, in part, by a merchant banking holding company called the McCarthy Group and that the firm's chairman, Michael McCarthy, was Chuck Hagel's campaign treasurer. After searching news archives, Harris found that during Hagel's first campaign, in 1996, the Nebraska media reported that he had been president of ES&S -- which at the time was called American Information Systems -- between 1992 and 1995. But the articles suggested that Hagel was no longer affiliated with the voting equipment company. Harris saw election records that showed Hagel still holding between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in McCarthy, which owned about 25 percent of ES&S.
Harris had stumbled on what seemed to be a striking conflict of interest -- a U.S. senator owned a share in a company that built all the vote-counting machines in his state. She put up the relevant documents on her site, "and immediately I knew I'd hit a sore spot," she says, "because right away I got a threat letter from ES&S."

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/20/voting_machines/print.html

Great post Tartarin. Sort of makes you wonder about the count on the deciding Florida vote count. I didn't know there was no paper trail to use as a tie breaker. Good info.

I can assure you that is what the majority of Germans, French, Belgian, British, Italian, Spanish and Australians are thinking. Unfortunately, they also had some doctored elections, by their own intelligence agencies in accordance with yours.